Hobohemia: Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, Ben Reitman & Other Agitators & Outsiders in 1920s/30s ChicagoFrom the 1910s through the Depression 30s, when Chicago was the undisputed hobo capital of the United States, a small north side neighborhood know as Towertown was the vital center of an extraordinary cultural/political ferment. It was home to Bughouse Square (the nation's most renowned outdoor free-speech center), Ben Reitman's Hobo College, and the fabulous Dil Pickle club, a highly unorthodox institution of higher learning that doubled as the craziest nightclub in the world. It was something like New York's Greenwich Village, but - thanks to the prominence of the Chicago-based IWW - much more working class, and more openly revolutionary. Frank O Becks Hobohemia contains a long time Towertowner's vivid reminiscences of this colorful, dynamic, creative and radical community that flourished for a generation despite constant onslaughts from the Red Squad, the Vice Squad, bourgeois journalists and fundamentalist bigots. Originally published in 1956, this handsome new edition contains a superb introduction from Franklin Rosemont, providing a historical overview of Chicago's working class counter-culture, and a biographical sketch of Beck. It also relates the book to earlier and later literature on the subject and fills in some gaps in the narrative. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Addams American Anarchist artists asked became Beck Beck's Black Bughouse Square called Carl Sandburg cause Charles H Chicago Company continued Daily death Dil Pickle Dill door dream early edition Emma fact followed forums Frank friends given hand Harry Haymarket Hobo Hobo College Hobohemia House human Illinois Industrial Institute Introduction Jack John Jones Kerr known labor later lectures living Lucy Parsons Madison Michigan mill mind mission morning mother never night Nina North once Parsons Party perhaps Pickle Club poets Porter present Press published radical Reitman serve side soapbox social Socialist society soon speakers Spies Square story Street thought took trips turned University wanted West Wobbly woman women workers write wrote York young